In the Middle of the Night
by buildingconundrums
Summary: AU Harry (first year) is having a difficult time. Professor Snape steps in to help. Slytherin!Harry, Mentor!Snape, Sick!Hurt!Harry. Dark themes. One-shot, atm, therefore, zero context.


"Harry." The low timbre came from behind him. The tone letting him instantly know he was right on the edge of being in trouble.

Eyes shooting open and suddenly very awake, Harry took immediately took stock of himself, frantically checking that his sleeves were down past his wrist. Looking down at his thighs he realized he may have a problem.

Adrenaline pumping, hands shaking, and uncomfortable cramping momentarily forgotten, Harry reached out towards the toilet paper. Taking a deep breath in as he pulled on the roll he put as much unwavering nonchalance into his reply as possible. "Yes, sir?" It came out slightly more tremulous than he would have liked, but a quick recalculation showed him it would have seemed odd to be alright with conversing whilst in a bathroom stall.

He stilled and listened for his head of house's response, knowing that were things to tilt ever so slightly he would be in immediate trouble. The forceful expulsion of air through nostrils was followed by a weary "Mr. Potter, please make yourself decent and present yourself directly."

Though said as a request, harry knew it to be anything but. Exhaling himself - quieter, hopefully, than his professor – Harry continued his pull on the roll, gathering in his fist just enough to do a shoddy job of things. Knowing time was short and acutely aware of his professor standing vigilant on the other side of the stall door, he placed the wad below first his left, then his right, thigh. Alternating hands to accommodate the angle. Pressing hard against the pliant flesh of his inner thigh he swept upwards, gathering the partly coagulated and mostly still flowing blood. There was naught else for him to wipe, and pulling more paper after the large wad he'd already grabbed would seem excessive and would, in all likelihood, try his professor's patience past the breaking point. He allowed the bloodied wad to fall into the waiting bowl.

Standing and pulling up pants and trousers, tucking shirt, zippering and buttoning until all was in it's rightful place; Harry took a moment to glance regretfully down into the reddened toilet bowl. Noting the slight gathering of blood where droplets had run from beneath his thigh onto the seat of the toilet, Harry did the only thing he could think of to hide his activities. He leaned forward and, after pulling his undershirt from beneath his robe sleeves, pressed his clothed inner wrist into it, gathering the remnants of the nightly ritual. Flushing the toilet, he closed his eyes and turned away from the sight of his incomplete habit. Exhaling once more, this time as an attempt to slacken his fingers into the shape of confused, embarrassed, wary and oh-so-ever-so-innocent all at once, he turned the latch and stepped out of the solitude of his stall.

Professor Snape was standing near the sinks, staring directly at him, as he stepped out. There was no avoiding the fact that he was caught out of bounds after curfew. He shuffled his way towards the sinks and only upon leaning forward to open the flow of water did he register the ever present cramping that had dogged his every waking moment and crept with him even into sleep for the past few days. He had to go. Ducking his head forward as if watching his hands as he washed them, Harry allowed himself a grimace of pained discomfort. The sound of the running water and its slipping sliding wetness as it rushed over his skin seemed to urge his bladder to press even more painfully into his lower abdomen. As his body weight shifted forward once more, turning the nob and shutting the water off, Harry felt the need to clench his cheeks. Despite knowing that nothing would be coming from either end, the sensation that an embarrassing accident was just one relaxed moment away was still present.

A towel was already at chest level as he turned towards his professor. Apparently he was not to be allowed any more stalling of the conversation. He took the towel in hand and Snape's long fingered hold dropped away. From the brief observation the moment afforded, Harry could detect no visual tenseness in the hand, no overly strong grip; perhaps his head of house was not quite so fearsomely angry as Harry had expected. Indeed, the silence itself, while not calm, was not overtly tense, either. _Expectant. _The word rang through his mind and he knew it to be approximately what the silence was.

"Mr. Potter, I have it on good authority that you are aware of the presence of _sixteen_ male bathrooms within the Slytherin rooms, _two_ of said bathrooms attached to your very own dormitory. Each of these bathrooms contains within them at least three toilets and each of those very same bathrooms are in perfect working order, accessible to all males of the Slytherin House. Are you, or are you not, aware of these things?" The statement was said with flat acerbity, the tang of which could be found within any of the many potions lectures where the class had already had all their cauldrons' contents vanished. The question was delivered with a whipping snap to it, each word bit off like the peel of an orange would be bitten. From the very moment the first syllable fell from his lips, Professor Snape's voice demanded eyes to snap their attention to him. Harry, like so many others, was unable to disobey.

So with shaking breath, and both his abdomen and bowels in agony, Harry spoke, just above a whisper, eyes trained on the dark shadowed eyes of his professor. "Yes, sir, I am aware."

An intake of breath and then another torrent of monotonic words, the darkening of Snape's furrowed brow increasing. "And I know for a fact you were made aware of the curfew you are held to. So why is it, Mr. Potter, at just passed _two thirty_ in the morning I find you here, out of house and away from the route to the infirmary, head boy or my own office?" Snape's chest rose up as if to continue, but he held it and only exhaled, waiting for the answer to his query. Knowing he had already demolished any flimsy excuse the child might have made in an attempt to escape persecution.

Looking down once more, Harry felt the need to go heighten. He pressed both knees together, squeezing his thighs against each other, not even fully appreciating the burn it brought. Willing his hands to remain at his sides, Harry could not stop the slight sway and hitch of his hips as his muscles clenched and unclenched; fitfully attempting to both loose and hold his bowels and bladder. He hadn't meant to - and had he known it would come out the way it did, he would have kept his bloody mouth shut, thank you very much - but when he answered, his voice rose into the pitching of a wounded whine. Embarrassing, but no more so than the words themselves that were all his cluttered and over-tired mind could scrap together. "Please, sir, I have to go."

The 'go' was what did him in. Though, the please itself had been slightly lengthened - just this side of a whine instead of a word. Go, however, had an elongated, octave raised vowel, clearly identified as a whine. Snape's eyes widened, the upper lid raising and his shadowed brow went from displeased to concerned in milliseconds.

"Child, did someone bar you from using the bathrooms within the house? Has someone told you you were not to use them? Why have you wandered from your lair this late? Why not come to me for aid?" Snape had placed a hand on Harry's shoulder now, spine bent forward to draw them closer in height. The crease of worry upon his brow only deepening as he noticed the wetness gathering at the edges of the overly bright, even in the dim light of the dungeons, brilliantly green eyes.

Harry felt the weight of the hand on his shoulder; realized, as the burning sting of tears pooling in his eyes heated his cheeks, that Snape had moved closer to him, but all he could feel was one more thing slipping past his control. One more bodily function ripped out of his grasp. The weighty hand, meant to be a comfort, only presented more weight for him to take into consideration whilst still feeling the cramping pulling pressing discomfort stretching up from abdomen and into his stomach. Arching from rectum and wrapping around his spine. He stomped his foot, frustrated with his lack of control, as tears began to slide down his cheeks and he realized, that even if he had tried, he would not have been able to release a single thing from bowels nor bladder. "I really need to go!" This time it was almost a wail, the effort of forcing the sounds through his closing voice-box making him sound all the more like the incompetent child he was trying so desperately not to be.

Snape knelt down in front of him, expression earnest and the frowning mouth opening to speak, "There is no need to become so upset, you say you need to go, child. Did you not go whilst you were in here? You had ensconced yourself within this room for well over twenty minutes." Left unsaid was the trailing question: _What could you have possibly found more important in here than using the loo, that would occupy you for so long, with such desperate, pressing need?_

"I didn't get to go." It was a sad miserable statement. To Harry, encompassing not just tonight, but every bathroom opportunity for the last three days. "I need to, but I can't! I hafta be relaxed, and if I'm not it doesn't work. And I really, really gotta go, but it's not working; and it hurts and **I need to go**!" Most of the declaration was a panicked jumble of quickly indrawn breaths, half sobs and rushed consonants and vowels, but the last was a desperate entreaty. The emerald eyes that had never strayed from blackened orbs seemed to pierce into Snape now. Harry himself felt on the verge of collapse. The cramps had redoubled their efforts to cripple him. Torturing him from the inside as if in punishment for thrusting his problems into another's hands. Yet, even as the shame for doing so washed through him, he did not regret it. _This_ he thought, _is not something I can continue to handle. This thing, alone, I cannot deal with. I need it to __**stop**__._

"Harry!" The sharp raised voice tore Harry from his internal contemplation of his own suffering and brought him crashing back into the reality of the stark dungeon bathroom. He drew a quick breath in and looked into the eyes of his head of house. "Harry, if you need to use the loo, do so." It was said seriously, the almost earnest, mostly worried, expression on Snape's face never faltering.

"I can't." The pleading in his voice had not dimmed and was now followed by several hitching of breath. "I try and I can't; and I want to but it won't go out; and it hurts to keep it." Harry watched as the earnest look faded, encompassed wholly now by a strange mixture of worry and relief.

"Have you been having trouble passing, Harry? Did you think you might just be in need of relaxing solitude to successfully go?" Harry registered the hand had not yet left his shoulder, and Snape's knees surely must be getting cold on the ground like that...but the man's spine had straightened, a man with an answer. Harry desperately hoped it was so.

Nodding his head up, then down, and down again, Harry broke his eyes away from his professor and instead stared blurry eyed at the man's knees and the robes splayed across the ground around them. Tears continued to drip from his eyes, and, knowing that his professor already knew enough to throw him under the bus, he allowed his hands to come forward. Despite knowing that nothing would come of opening his thighs, the sensation that he would spurt unwillingly forth if he did, made him reach for the fastenings of his trousers. Fumbling briefly in the attempt to relieve the pressure on his bladder and intestines, he slipped both hands over pants and around himself. Squeezing tightly, as though his grip alone could solve all his problems. He curled in on himself, like some human question mark attempting to find reason to life. "I need to go." A miserable whisper now, but heard all the same by the professor.

"I know, child. I understand. I am going to lift you, now. I shall carry you to my quarters, as is my right as your housemaster. Do not worry, child, soon it will all be sorted. I promise." And so saying the professor placed one arm behind the bend of Harry's knees and one across his shoulders. Standing in one swift movement and taking long steady strides out of the washed out loo and across the dark dungeon hallways.

Harry squeezed his eyes closed and concentrated on breathing through the sharp stabs of pain and jolting shocks of denied release. A whimper made it's way, unbidden, from his throat. From above him came a soft shushing and murmured "Almost there." Harry had never been carried like this. A part of him wanted to bask in the feeling. Most of him, however, was centered around his desperate need to go and the worry that soon, the blood seeping from his thighs and into his dark pants would stain something (be it hand, chair or bed-sheet) a telltale red - and he would lose more than just the secret he had already half-willing given.

Suddenly he was placed on what could only be a couch. Too long and spacey to be a chair, but the feeling of a firm cushy wall and the lumpy firmness beneath him validating that it was neither bed nor floor. The feeling of material sticking to his wet cheek and temple spurred him into cracking his eyes open. Black leather. _Safe._ As long as he was careful about how he got up, being sure to wipe the wet area with a dry section of robe, no one need be the wiser that he was bleeding.

"When was the last time you came into contact with spells? Either through casting or having them cast on you?" The abrupt questions shattered the silence and Snape's voice again brought him back into reality. _Seem to be wandering a lot lately_. The thought drifted through his mind, but he spared it little contemplation.

"Charms, 'fore lunch." Harry's answer lacked the refinement he knew, on some level, he should respond with. But the pressing pains and overbearing need cut away all unnecessary frivolities of thought and speech.

There was a pause, a weighing of the plausible truth of his words followed by a decisive "Very well."

Harry looked towards his professor and saw that some rummaging had taken place either before or after his arrival. Though, judging by the vial clutched in one hand and the material in his other, harry would place his bets on it being after. His bladder strained again and Harry could only gasp and tighten his grip further in response. Eyes squinting shut once more and shoulders hunching in as defensive a posture as possible.

"You will have to drink the entirety of this draught, as well as wear this." Although logically Harry knew that opening his eyes would present him with the clarity he sought, he could only bring himself to an exhaled gasp of: "'kay," and hope the draught in question was small in size and whatever it was he had to wear was to be placed on his head or lie upon his body. Leaving his present state and position thoroughly undisturbed.

"Will you need help?" The question was asked in the same kinder than harsh tone that Harry could only label as Snape's version of kind. But it seemed his body had had enough of this lax question and answer session, for his innards chose that moment to twist and quench and cramp and shiver inside him. Leaving him to press his face against the damp leather, a moan issuing undeterred past teeth, bitten into cheek, and lips, flush against the black surface.

Harry felt hot and cold. Another contradictory impression to add to his growing list of illogical bodily sensations. The clipped and muttered "right," was heard but did not register as having any sort of meaning. He was tired, and his brain was buzzing with the overloaded needs: The pressure on his bladder and the almost pain of his own fists wrapped forcefully around himself; The burning heated warmth of bloodied raw thighs coupled with the pulsating fear of imminent discovery; The twisting churning of his intestines as they attempt to burst forth, and the churlish uncontrollable inability to allow it. The dragging weariness of sleep pulling at him. The thundering alertness of pain and fear driven adrenaline keeping him keyed and awake. So entrenched within these warring thoughts was he, that it was not until a new pressure against his buttocks was felt did it occur to him that opening his eyes and paying attention might actually be a necessity.

His eyes popped open and snapped to Snape's face just in time to catch the moment when his head of house realized there was blood, and plenty of it, pooling in the area of his student's groin. The student who lay upon his couch, twisting and shuddering in pain, clutching himself in hand. Trousers partially pulled down, waistband still resting in the professors slackened hands. Silent tears streaking across his face and breathy gasps forcing their way between Harry's lips. _Fuck._

Harry watched as the same eye-widening forehead creasing look of shock to concerned worry flickered over his housemaster's face once more, a second later sliding into a cool mask of neutrality. The fact that his teacher might panic, might be frightened, had not occurred to Harry until he felt Snape's fingers trembling as they worked the trousers free from between tightly clenched knees.

"Harry, I need to call for help. I had thought it was a simple, if overly-painful, case of constipated bowel, but there is...I have reason to think it might be more. Please wait right there, try not to move. _Do not panic_. I will keep you safe, child." Then Snape was turning away. Walking towards his fireplace, and Harry knew. It all clicked into place. Shockingly, as though through an electric charged current, he comprehended. Snape thought the blood was from inside him. From in his stomach somewhere. He was scared, and worried, Harry might be hurt worse than his potions could fix. That concern (and the very real possibility of his secret being forced from him not just to one person but many), provided Harry the will to speak out. To say the one thing he swore he would never tell a soul.

"Cut m' thighs – with razor – blood's fr'm that. Don't be mad." It seemed ridiculous now, saying it out loud. Harry wished, desperately, he could take it back. Pluck the very words from the air before they reached Snape, and swallow them whole. The last bit was a quieter entreaty, hopelessly asked for; and said none-the-less. His heart quivered within his chest. His throat seemed to close up tighter than before - as though his body was, despite being circumvented, persevering in its attempt to silence him.

Snape's form paused, fist clenched, and palm turned in toward the fire roaring in the hearth. His head of house seemed to draw in breath and square his shoulders before exhaling as he turned. He stalked back over to the couch. Harry still lay curled, eyes crinkled tight at the sides in pain and exhaustion, observing every nuance he could in this heart-racing moment of truth giving. "We will speak of this later, when your insides have been sorted." Was the slightly gruff statement. _Command_. Harry's mind corrected.

Then Snape's fingers were hooking into the elastic of Harry's pants, and he could no longer be bothered to worry about blood and razors and words at all. He sucked breath in quickly and his head twisted to face Snape directly. He knew his eyes oozed betrayal. Despite knowing better, he had allowed himself to hope, to trust, to think that maybe there was a head of a house (even a house as diverse as Slytherin) who would not want that as payment.

"Harry, I told you, you will have to wear the diaper. You have shown yourself incapable of maneuvering it into position yourself. I must do it for you. I will not touch you any more that necessary. I swear to you." it was said in what could only be deemed as a calming manner. Snape's voice was low, the words flowed softly and kindly to one another. The oath was said so firmly, Harry longed to believe. _It does not matter. One way, or another, he will get what he wants. Give it freely, and perhaps he will help you yet. _Always so coldly logical, his mind pulled through for him again. While in a corner of his mind he screamed and raged and cowered in fear, Harry would not allow himself to negate any hope of a trade. Releasing his fists, he whimpered as his bladder seemed to rush forward and simultaneously press painfully against his abdomen, unwilling to move.

His pants were pulled down and down some more, coming to rest with one leg hole looped around an ankle; trousers laying somewhere else, forgotten. Harry closed his eyes, unwilling to watch as this was taken from him. Only to feel his hips hiked up, off the leather. _Oh, you didn't know you'd have to pay with that, did you?_ His mind tittered tauntingly, but then his bottom was lowered, coming to rest atop some sort of dry, thick material. The firm pressure on his lower abdomen, as the material was wrapped around his groin and tightened, was painful more than it was embarrassing. His breath left him in a rush. He felt as if he was being torn from the inside, and punched in the gut, while a needle seemed to be poking into his bladder, all at once. The tears, which had momentarily halted in the moments of heart-stopping fear that had filled his confession, slid once more down his face, creating wet almost ticklish trails across his temples. He felt clammy and cold, but it seemed as if his body raged with an internal inferno. A smoothed lip of what felt like glass, or perhaps aluminum, was pressed against his tightened mouth.

The command: "Drink." Came from somewhere above him. Harry parted his lips but the act only allowed for the whining moan of agony he had been so valiantly withholding to spew forth. A breath was was quickly drawn in through his flared nostrils and it seemed that the single moan had allowed the wall to break. He felt, more than heard, his body verbalizing its protests to the pain and lack of rest. "Open." The low tone came with a hint of forcefulness. Eyes still closed, Harry allowed his teeth to unclench, opening not only his mouth, but the airflow to his vocal box. The half shout, half sob of distress that issued forth passed unobstructed.

Harry was done. He was tired, and his insides _hurt_, and he just wanted it to **stop**. All of it; everything. _Should have tried harder to die_. Flashed across his mind with startling alacrity. He knew it to be true. If he'd just died in the first place, he would not currently be punished for daring to think himself worthier than others to exist. Others who could have taken his place, used the magic he used, breathed the very air he breathed. He should have just – his thoughts were effectively derailed by the abrupt reality of drowning.

Attempting to inhale through his nose, he found the passageway held closed by the slightly pliant pressure of a large thumb and forefinger. The overpowering need to breathe now warred with his overpowering need to go. The constricting of his lungs seemed to wreak havoc upon his clenching intestines. The gasp, that should have followed his coughing choke, was halted by the palm pressed against his still partially opened mouth.

Panic flared. Harry briefly wondered if Professor Snape had somehow sensed his desire to discontinue life. Should he be grateful then? But, no, he had never wanted to suffocate. Knew how painful and torturous it would be to go that way. As if through an echoing tube, he heard Snape's voice. The buzzing from within his ear canals almost shattered any hope of him understanding what was said. Then it came again, slightly clearer, now that Harry was aware there was something being said – some sort of meaning to be understood. "Swallow, child. You need to consume the draught. Just swallow. Swallow, and I can release you. Come, child, swallow." A semi-repetitive mantra of commands and reassurances had been arduously decoded.

Alright. He had enough practice with that. Swallowing, despite a strong internal desire to gag instead. He could do this. It was a small price for the freedom to breathe. Forcing his tongue to press forward, and up. Sliding the liquid towards the back of his throat. Making the sucking, contracting motions that would allow the liquid to flow down his esophagus and into his already over-taxed stomach. He swallowed.

The containing hands against his mouth and nose were almost instantaneously removed. His gag reflex coupled with the explosive cough, while his lungs greedily attempted to draw air in, seemed to defy any sense. The steadying hand upon his shoulder, pressing him flush against the leather (which was uncomfortably damp beneath his ears and sticking to the moisture gathered at the nape of his neck), was accompanied by the equally steadying voice of his head of house. "Keep it in. Try to keep it down, child. There you go. That's it. Calmly breath in, and out. Focus on my voice. You're okay. You're going to be alright. I'm here. You're alright, Harry."

Slowly, as his breathing evened out, and that function was once more under his own control, Harry cracked open his eyes. Blinking blearily against the nauseating array of bright light, he fought to focus on his professor's face. Apparently satisfied with Harry's overall coherence, and ability to retain the draught, Snape removed his hand and instead sat down on the low coffee table. Never breaking eye contact, the potion master launched into as concise an explanation as he could manage. "Your body has begun retaining liquid. The muscles used to expel such liquid are receiving contradictory signals. Leaving you, in knots. The draught I have given you will purge your system. Completely. This is likely to leave you dehydrated and weak. Thus, the diaper. In all honesty, I would have preferred you in the infirmary or St. Mungo's for this, but with the infirmary under lock-down and the paperwork storm _your_ admittance would create - this is the most timely, and viable, option." Dark brown eyes refocused upon emerald green. Snape seemed to heave the barest hint of a sigh. "The diaper is self-cleaning, but you will stay here so I can monitor your electrolytes and overall state of health. It will most likely be very uncomfortable for you, but know this is the best route to rehabilitating your body." Another pause, this time filled with a considering gaze, and Harry attempted to pretend not to know what else Snape could possibly want to discuss with him. The steady raw burn of his thighs, still bleeding with the recent removal of the semi-bandage that had been his pants and trousers, belied his innocence. Snape did not have to do anything, they both already knew what was not being said. Harry prepared himself for the tongue lashing he knew he was in for, eyes cast away over his housemaster's left shoulder.

"The draught will most likely kick in within the next ten to fifteen minutes, Mr. Potter." Came the unexpectedly neutral statement. Snape stood and turned his shoulders towards the area beyond Harry's head, eyes still trained on the tear-streaked visage, he continued. "I will be in the kitchen, and perhaps one of the rooms beyond it in the hallway. Simply call out if you need me. For anything, no matter how small you deem it. This is not something to keep quiet about." He lowered his chin and drew Harry's gaze into his own. "None of it is." Harry's heart clenched. "I will return within the hour to hydrate you, as well as clean you up and transfer you into your new room. If you feel up to walking around before I return, feel free to make your way into the kitchen to use the sink or get something to drink." Snape turned fully now, he took one step then paused, "I will leave the doorways open. I will hear you if you are in distress." Snape's tone was again that softer than harsh that Harry had earlier identified as kind, but Harry could only seem to hear the words as a subtle threat.

Snape stalked away, leaving Harry to turn onto his side and take deep shuddering breaths. _Calm down, getting worked up only makes it hurt worse. _As his breathing approached the same calm he had achieved in hallways among peers throughout his internal ordeal, Harry realized that things seemed to be – loosening. There was no other was to describe the almost numbing laxness that seemed to overtake his nether regions. His abdomen audibly gurgled and squelched. His entire body still felt as if waves of steam were alternating with icy winds. Flushing, and cooling, him respectively. Yet, something was loosened. Some part of the internal storm within his stomach was easing. A sharp spiking pain shot forth suddenly. Stealing a startled, pain-filled yelp from his lips. He curled in on himself while canting his hips away from the rest of his body, attempting to get as far away from the source of pain whilst still shielding himself. He clenched his jaw, teeth grinding into one another, his tongue pressing against the barricade, and lips curled into a snarl. His fist clenched the fabric of his shirt, joints straining to strangle the invisible sadistic enemy. A soft keening filled the room. It was not until his shoulder was shaken, swaying his body in its fetal position back and forth, that he identified the sound as his own.

Snape's voice seemed to filter in through the pain. It took effort to divine a meaning from the syllabic sounds. Effort Harry almost didn't bother to exert. The ingrained habit of listening to those older and better than himself was the only thing that allowed him to _will_ conscious thought to decipher what was being said. The hand on his shoulder was clenched tightly, without inducing any pain, around the joint. "...I need you to tell me in order to help. Please, I will help. Let me help. Tell me what is wrong. What hurts?"

The voice's meaning faded out once more as the sharp burning pain stabbed through him again. Accompanied, this time, by a reverberating ache. The clenching of his abdominal muscles, already tortured from the past few days' endeavors, followed close behind. Harry could do no more then issue another whining keen, pitched higher, this time, like a wounded dog. Never, to his knowledge, had he made sounds such as this before. _Help! I need help._ The frantic panicked thought reminded him of the voice's earlier pleas. He managed, barely, a halfway intelligible stutter of: "P-p-pee. Buuurrr-ns. 'Tabs."  
His abdomen clenched again. With his next indrawn breath, compensating for the exhalation used to formulate the desperate words, his muscles flexed and insides writhed. Pain burned up into his abdomen and his dizzying exhaustion, along with the cloying heat and drenching chills, all amounted to a single, clear thought: _I'm going to throw-up._ He lurched his body slightly towards the edge of the couch, knowing it was not nearly enough, and turned his mouth down towards what could only be the general location of the floor. Then, even that consideration was out the window.

Breathing hitched, and chest constricting. Gorge rising, and jaw slackening; he began to heave. The painful, forceful clenching only added to the nauseating need to expel the sickness. He flushed again and felt too hot and simultaneously too cold. He heaved again, the bitter bile making its way to the back of his tongue. He made a sort of "Hnn" noise as he heaved again. His body was now completely in control of everything. He knew, abruptly, the draught had worked. His bowels seemed to heave as well. The sometimes-synchronized, opposing tumult of strained and half relaxed tension made his insides shiver and cramp harder in pain. For a tremulous moment, he thought he might be done – that surely, if his heaving had not expelled more than the mouthfuls of bile pooling around his mouth – surely, his body must concede defeat? Allow him this one reprieve while only his lower orifices continued to tremble and contract? As if sensing his desire for it to cease, the heaving seemed to redouble its violent wrenching. The painful spasms wracking his body seeming to twist his aching back muscles whilst pummeling into the already pulverized abdominal muscles. A half breath, and the next heave was already upon him. He felt as though he couldn't even spare enough oxygen to think past taking stock of what each singular moment of existing contained.

Harry vaguely felt a pressure on his shoulder and hip. And didn't register what the sensations meant, until he felt a change in gravity's pull and realized his neck was no longer straining towards the edge of the couch. Now, his slackened jaw dangled over the empty yawning chasm, esophagus and body angled in a way that made the ensuing heaves just the slightest bit less taxing. His left cheek, wet with acrid bile and damp remnants of sobbing, was pressed horizontally into the edge of the couch. One fist was now captured between his sternum and the couch. The other fist, still clutched tightly around his shirt was now resting with whitened knuckles pressing into the black leather. He heaved again and felt as if he were being made to heave his very tongue out of his mouth. He gasped in a half sobbed breath. _Please!_ His mind redirected its concentration onto the cramping release of his bowels and the lingering, sharp, stabbing pains of his emptied bladder.

The next heave came upon him unprepared for its forcefulness. He made some half strangled sound, like a choking gull, followed by a tumult of grainy, chunky globs of burning acidity. Choking off his airway as it erupted from his throat, seeming to scald his palate and cling to the roof of his mouth and teeth, the bile-like acid _sick_ stained his taste buds. A short breath in and a brief keen were all he could manage before more of the sludge was being driven from his stomach. Burning a scorching trail up into his throat, and tearing once more against his palate, before meeting the floor with a slurping splash that only heightened his already keen sense of nausea. An endless cycle of gasp, "Hnn," regurgitate seemed to be his life for eternity. Again, and again, he heaved. The chilling heat suffused him, making him extremely uncomfortable and hyper-aware of everything. Exactly how bright the lights were. Precisely how painful firelight could be when it seemed to burn itself into his brain and travel from numbed forehead into temples and from there directly into weakening every muscle his body had. Approximately what thick liquid sounded like as it splattered into his mouth and onto the floor.

He breathed in through his nose, deeper than the shallow gasps his body had allowed since this mini-torture-session had begun. The cloying scent of vomit made his head rush and he felt as though he were tunneling downwards. _I don't wanna throw up anymore. I don't wanna faint into throw-up._ Yet, it seemed unavoidable. His mind no longer comprehended the existence of gravity, nor direction. He felt, from a remote area in his mind, his cheek slide forward and the drag his shoulders following after it. His fist, previously clenched tight beneath his sternum against the couch, had become flaccid, allowing his body to continue its downward slide. He mentally groaned as he realized he was likely to both crack his forehead into the stone floor, as well as literally face-plant into the pool of waiting vomit. _Gross. Gonna hurt. No – dun' wanna._ Even in his mind it was a whine. He was powerless to stop it. The rushing in his ears, and the disconnect from his own body (despite still feeling everything), left him with nothing to do but do a preemptive mental cringe.

A large hand splayed across his sternum, large enough to hold his chest from end to end, and a second hand, firm and steady, gripping his right shoulder, startled him more fully into the blurry semi-consciousness of feeling, hearing and seeing. Still, with nowhere near enough power to force his voice-box to work, let alone move a finger, Harry could only hope his semi state would give him enough distance from the churning nausea to avoid further heaving – at least of the throat-based variety. Harry had already admitted defeat to the lower sort.

He felt himself lifted up. The weightless, floating, swooping sensation sent his head lolling once more. Eighty percent certain he was going to pass-out anyway, Harry allowed his body to go completely lax. _Can't fight anymore._

But the dark placid blackness did not take him. Or, if it did, it did not keep him for long. With a high ringing and a whitewashed world slowly filling with color and meaning, Harry came back into awareness. He was moving. Staring up at stone ceiling, but _he_ wasn't moving. _I'd know if I were, wouldn't I? Where is it I am, anyway? _A hoarse hum creaked it's way from his vocal chords and into the silent air around him. _No, not silent, there's a rustling sort of – ow, that __**hurts**__. Why do I hurt?_ As a second cramp-stab combo made it's way up from his abdominal walls, Harry realized he was most likely leaving a very dirty wet trail behind. He felt a cold embarrassment filter in. His cheek, however, felt warm and unclean. Cutting his eyes towards the source of warmth, Harry found himself staring uncomprehendingly at a swath of thick black cloth. _Where did that come from?_ Drifted into his mind and he fixated on the question. Clinging to it, in the vague hope that it would somehow lend clarity to this odd non-moving movement and the '_ouchies_' in his tummy.

"You're alright, child. Let's get you cleaned up and into bed. It's okay." The deep vibrations against his right arm caused him to glance down toward the sensation. _More warm black stuff._ The conclusiveness of that statement left his mind at ease for a moment before he realized: _No, that doesn't solve anything, does it?_ Another sharp pain followed by what could only be a lengthy spurt of rough acidic something from below the cramping pain caused a gasp to be wrenched from his lips. A moan followed, right fist clenching a handful of the '_nice, soft, warm'_ material. Unwilling to be separated from this black moving thing. _Warm._ Flashed through his mind once more, and Harry closed his eyes. Pressing his forehead into the material next to his cheek. _Blanket, _he thought, decisively. The section next to his arm expanded into a bubble and then retracted, leaving a gentle wind to cut a chilling swath against his skin. He pulled with his fist, attempting to gather the blanket around himself. _Too cold. Cold hurts._ His brow furrowed in confusion as the blanket failed to behave as a blanket. _What? _The logical section of his mind, which had, up until this moment, remained unusually silent, chose that moment to derisively cut off his inane mental babble. _Well, of course it doesn't behave as a blanket. Blankets do not move on their own – never mind talk._


End file.
